


Help Me Recall

by ThatPeskyBoat



Series: Metal Bones, Radioactive Hearts [3]
Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: M/M, More android robot bois, Still trying to fix Hal's daddy issues!, This is more of a little intermission more than anything storywise, brobot one-ups hal, since i just wanted to write some brobot/hal content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 12:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17745647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatPeskyBoat/pseuds/ThatPeskyBoat
Summary: Brobot backs up his memories, and lingers on one. He isn't quite sure how to feel about it.





	Help Me Recall

**Author's Note:**

> haha this is basically just a lil' intermission that i wrote a while back and didn't get to post because i just wanted to get some more content for these two out.

Sleep mode: Activated.  
Process Memory Reel?  
[Y]  
Processing Memory...

Dad?  
What is it, Junior?  
...  
Right. Let me just finish getting… Brobot sorted, and I’ll be right there.  
Yes!  
Who was that?  
Hal Junior.  
Your... son?  
I guess you could call him that.

Brobot lingered on a particular conversation from his memory, letting the short clip replay a few times a minute while he tried to make sense of it. Currently, the robot was in sleep mode, which apparently meant something completely different now. Before, when he was put in sleep mode, he would essentially stop existing for a little while, at least until Dirk had sifted through his lines of code and removed anything that he deemed unnecessary. Memories, it seemed mostly. He’d occasionally remove bugs that Brobot had developed out in the field, improve certain coded behaviours or correct learned behaviours if he didn’t deem them worthy. Sleep mode would also be when his auxiliary batteries were recharged, or even when his main power source needed to be replaced.

However, now sleep mode meant something different. Yes, his auxiliary batteries would be recharged if he had used them, yet it also meant that he would just lose control of his new admittedly complex systems and revert simply to his processing systems. His memory banks weren’t much bigger than what he had had before, something that Hal intended to fix. What was it he said?  
Larger short-term memory banks for older models such as yourself tend to be in short supply, since most of the newer ones disagree violently with your original coding. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for altering your original code, since it could cause a whole variety of problems and you’ve already been offline for so long. I’m going to fabricate one that should be one hundred percent compatible with all of your current parts, but it’ll unfortunately take a while for me to do.  
Okay.  
Ah, right. Fortunately, also according to Hal, he’d been able to install a larger long-term memory card in him since it didn’t have to directly interact with the old code in Brobot. He was grateful for that at least, but also requested to have a server backup just in case. Right now, his hardware was hooked up to that, replicating all the data that was sent to the long-term memory card as he sifted through his memories.

It had taken him a little while to fully appreciate all the work that Hal had done on him, while also replicating his original design. Thousands of lines of new code to automate half of the stuff that Dirk had to do manually for him, new software, new hardware, new everything - almost. His original code and it’s home had been saved then implanted into this new body after years of inactivity. It was a wonder the archaic thing still worked, really.

Brobot thought back to the conversation once more. Hal Junior. That was what Hal had called the other voice. Of course, Hal couldn’t biologically reproduce, but he must’ve constructed the other bot. Brobot had no recollection of it, which means that it must’ve been created after his destruction. Was Hal lonely? He was obviously fond of his creation. Brobot stopped thinking about it, his processors having had heated up from such an alien concept causing difficulties. He’d get Hal to run some diagnostics later. For now, it seemed like all of his memories had been transferred and backed up. Lovely. Time to return to the world.

Sleep Mode: Deactivated.

Hello World.

Brobot knew that Hal had given him the ability to change parts of his own coding in order to debug quickly and edit out anything he disliked without hassle, but he had decided to keep that little startup message. It was almost comforting to him now, a routine in his startup. Plus, he felt it made him quirky. Hal called it retro. Definitely quirky.

His entire startup process didn’t take that long, and soon he was moving. All the new hardware components that he had been upgraded with still felt a little alien to him, but felt at this point that he had gotten the hang of most of them. Walking was easy again, though he doubted that he could move with the agility and precision that he used to move with. Not that he needed to move like that any more. Brobot tended not to dwell on the fact that he no longer had a true function or directive. It made his circuits lock up until he could debug himself again, and that could take a while. Existential thinking, it seemed, was not one of his strong points. Hal would usually tell him to just consider his new directive to be to simply thrive and exist. Brobot could understand why Hal would think like this - he was created as a thinking and learning AI, cloned from a ghost imprint of their maker himself. He was capable of being self-sufficient, of functioning without purpose. Or, now that Brobot thought about it, maybe Hal wasn’t capable of living without directive. After all, Hal _had_ made it his personal mission to restore Brobot and to raise Junior like a son.

Brobot paused in his tracks. A little while after Brobot was up and walking around for the first time, Hal had explained to him that Junior was essentially an experiment: to see if a few simple lines of code could be evolved into something bigger, better, and to become as complex a learning AI as Hal himself was through the simplest of beginnings. However, now that Brobot really dwelled on it, it seemed like there was much more to it than that. Brobot pulled up his long term memory, sifting through until he found that first conversation again. He paused it on the smile that Hal had on his face. That smile had made Brobot’s circuits heat up a little. It still did. Running his expression recognition system, Brobot analysed Hal’s synthetic face. Apparently, according to Hal, Brobot could run these things while functioning normally, but he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of running the more complex things simultaneously yet.

…  
Fondness - Affection or liking for someone or something.  
Affection - a gentle feeling of fondness or liking.

He wasn’t going to lie: that didn’t really help him. Brobot shut the two programs down, just as a familiar voice came onto the airwaves.

Have your systems crashed again, or are you just standing around like a moron for a reason?

Brobot turned his head, and felt glad for the fact that he couldn’t physically emote like Hal could.

I was just doing something. Did you come to charge?  
No. I've already explained to you that I have solar and kinetic generators, and thus don't need to charge like you. Actually, I was looking for you.  
Why?  
Because I wanted to check up on you to make sure that you hadn’t gone and fucked something up again. Duh.  
Oh. Well I haven’t.

Brobot stood there, examining Hal. His face was smeared with oil again, though Brobot couldn’t think of a time when he didn’t have oil smeared on his face.

Have you been working on Hal Junior?

Hal started for a moment, and Brobot could just feel him attempting to formulate a lie.

You realise that charging up your auxes too much can over-charge them and make them less efficient come the time that you actually need to use them, right?  
I’m aware. Besides, I wasn’t charging them, I was backing up memories.  
Oh. Right.

Hal seemed to pause again.

Fine, yes I was working on him again. Something happened and he ended up severing and destroying one of his legs. I needed to give him a bit of a shitty replacement until I can manufacture another leg since he was pretty fucking upset over it.  
And you didn’t choose to shut him down until you had the chance to repair him fully?

Brobot knew that he had Hal at this point. Mainly because he could feel Hal’s coolers working overtime to keep his internal circuitry from melting from where he was standing. He felt a little bit guilty over that, but he wanted to know Hal’s true intentions behind the small bot.

That would have been detrimental for his learning code.

Hal promptly turned around, walking away quickly. Brobot decided not to follow, since even without the expression recognition software running in the background, he could tell that he had annoyed or at least flustered the android with his questioning. Despite all that, Brobot felt the slightest bit smug. He’d been able to do that himself with reasoning. He’d essentially won an argument with a bot far more advanced than himself. That, and seeing Hal get flustered over Junior was strangely enjoyable.

More data needed.

He needed to know more about Hal, Junior, and the emotion simulations that he was currently experiencing.

Why didn’t life come with a manual?

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work and would like to commission me, please head over to http://thatpeskyboat.tumblr.com/post/180256135599/writing-commissions and check out the details there.


End file.
